Last week I wrote about experimenting with aged black garlic for the first time after my friend Veronica gave me a few cloves to experiment with at home. I tried it in eggs, kung pao chicken, and just eating it straight. And today, black garlic soba noodles.

To recap, aged black garlic is a Korean ingredient that has gotten popular in recent years. Whole garlic cloves are fermented in machines to develop the black color and an earthy, tangy, and slightly sweet flavor. You can just eat the chewy cloves whole or chop them up and cook with them.

I tweaked my usual method of preparing soba noodles every so slightly. I sautéed the garlic with kale and shiitake mushrooms (it's mellow woodsiness goes really well with the garlic's flavor.) Then I whisked together some soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, Chinese black vinegar, and chili sauce to coat the noodles and vegetables. A very easy, satisfying lunch!

I hadn't until a few weeks ago. At the Summer Fancy Food Show last month, my friend Veronica gave me a couple cloves of Korean aged black garlic to experiment with at home. And wow, is it versatile!

(And you don't even have to go to a Korean specialty store to find it. Aged black garlic is available on Amazon in both large and small bags.)

A popular ingredient in Korean cooking in recent years, black garlic gets its color and flavor from fermentation. Whole bulbs are fermented at high temperatures inside machines that regulate and change the temperature and humidity levels during the 30-day process. According to The Washington Post, the fermentation process results in high antioxidant levels and even cancer-curing properties. It's also now a hot new ingredient for chefs in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Ever since my cookbook came out last December, I've been fortunate to have found more time and spaces around New York to teach cooking classes. And to everyone who has attended a class in the past year, thank you for all your great feedback on new classes you'd like to see!

I'm happy to announce some new offerings for August, along with some old favorites. This month I'm starting to teach at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. We have two weekend classes coming up, a very hands-on Dumpling Making Workshop in which we'll make everything from scratch (including the wrappers) and a Chinese Vegetarian Cooking class featuring four of my favorite meatless dishes. Then in late August, we have two daytime dumpling classes at the Brooklyn Brainery for all you freelancers, teachers, and anyone else who wants to learn some new cooking skills before the end of the summer!

For the last two weeks, we've been trying to survive an intense heatwave here in New York. As in, temperatures ranging from 90 to 100 degrees F every single day. I've been trying to keep cool by working next to my wonky AC, though unfortunately I can't glue myself to it.

Walking around outside any time before 7pm can be quite brutal. As is waiting for the subway any time of the day. When you look forward to the sun setting so the temps can cool down to 91 degrees, that's a bad sign.

What a month this has been! New York has been blanketed by an insane heatwave, so I've been trying to keep cool by staying busy indoors in front of a fan and temperamental AC unit. And teaching cooking classes, which also happen to be indoors (fortunately!) I've also been prepping a few new recipes into publish as well, but in meantime I'm happy to share a few recent press mentions.